Infection
by amberpire
Summary: This is not a world of music. ;Zombie!Glee universe. Multiple pairings.;
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N**: An anon on tumblr asked if I would do a Zombie!Glee fic. I've decided that I'm going to do a series of oneshots/drabbles in this universe with various pairings. Mostly slash, though. That's my specialty._

_I do not own Glee. I do not own zombies. I don't own a lot of things, actually. It's probably best that way._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Title;<strong> Medicine  
><strong>Pairing;<strong> Santana & Brittany  
><strong>Rating;<strong> T_

_/_

"We just need to give all of them medicine."

Brittany says this while she lifts a plastic bag bulging with various bottles of medication. The clinkling of pills rolling over themselves meets Santana's disbelieving face as Brittany raises the bag, smiling broadly.

Santana, throat tight, can't bring herself to correct the blonde. She never has. Swallowing hard, she draws the girl forward and crushes her into her chest, hugging the breath out of her. The plastic bag crinkles between them.

"It's just an infection, right? That's what they keep calling it on TV. We'll just give them some Flintstones gummy vitamins and it'll make them better."

Santana's hand rubs along the girl's spine. "Sure, Britt," she says, and outside she can hear the shrill howling again.

/

At first, it was just images on the TV. Staggering, gray-faced people - pseudo people - bumbling after the cameras. Some kind of virus had leaked, or the terrorists had done it, or aliens, or God's wrath - whatever it was, it stirred the dead to become flesh-eating machines. It was every zombie movie Santana had ever seen, all coming to life in her living room.

It was just Europe. Africa. Asia. It wasn't here, it wasn't in America. The whole country quarantined itself, not daring to risk infection. McKinley was one of the last to close, but parents were no longer daring to risk the safety of their children. Stores closed altogether. Food was given out in rations by the brave. Government officials with sweaty foreheads and nervous, cracking voices stood on podiums and assured the people that they were safe. People got in their cars and drove west like it would make any difference. It was all on TV, on the radio, the Internet. The world became quiet. Lima became quiet.

But then it wasn't just on TV. It was outside Santana's window. She saw the first zombie in winter, tripping over the snow, low groans in his throat. Santana didn't recognize him, but as she stood there, paralyzed at her window, she realized this as someone's husband. Someone's brother, son, friend. And she knew the drill (_at the first sight of an Infected individual alert someone who is armed get a weapon shoot them in the head behead them the head the head) _but she couldn't get herself to scream, to call for her mom or dad, so she just watched him circle the house and stumble into the street.

It only took a few days.

Santana is speeding toward Brittany's house. She passes a dozen of them. She hits one with the side of her car. Some of them are bleeding in places, some are missing limbs, but they all stare into her windows at her like she's a mouth-watering feast. She doesn't care because she had woken up to the sound of gunfire in her living room and there was her mother holding a gun - her mother holding a gun, shaking, holding a _gun_, and there was her father in a heap on the floor with a bleeding hole in his head.

"He got bitten, he got bitten, he begged me, San! He begged me too!"

Santana wasn't mad at her, but she couldn't talk, couldn't look past her dad's lifeless face. And she grabbed her mother by the shoulders and kissed her cheek. "I have to find Brittany. Stay here."

Her father's corpse tattoos the back of her eyelids as she drives. The streets are littered in abandoned cars and garbage and dead animals and deal _people_ and she's going eighty in the middle of town. She's tearing through stop signs and red lights and barreling down Brittany's street. It all whips past her window so fast she can barely see any of it, like a wheel of memories blurring and blurring and blurring. The sky is blue and cloudless, the sun is beaming happy yellow rays down at them.

It's so wrong.

Brittany's house is dark. Santana leaves the car on and the door open when she bursts out of it, climbing Brittany's porch. The door is locked, but the window gives way to her elbow. Glass sprinkling the carpet, Santana crawls into the quiet house and screams, "Brittany!"

There's nothing for a moment. A clock ticking somewhere. A TV set to static. Santana weaves through the house and jumps the stairs. "Brittany! It's me! Where are you?"

"Santana!"

The voice jolts her. Legs electrified into movement, she tears down to Brittany's bedroom. The girl is sitting with her knees under her arms in the center of her bed. She's in pajamas. Santana feels like melting, falling beside the blonde on the bed and gripping her hard. Brittany's face disappears into her chest.

"Where's your mom? Where's your sister?"

Brittany shakes her head into Santana's shirt. It feels like her stomach has crawled out of her mouth.

Grabbing the girl as tightly as possible by the elbow, Santana drags a sobbing Brittany out of the house. But the sight of an Infected circling her car stops them both. He's wearing a suit and bleeding from the side of his head. Santana's arms swing out defensively, blocking Brittany behind her.

"Where is your gun?"

Brittany doesn't answer. Every household in Lima was issued a firearm as soon as the Infection had spread to the northeast. She knows it's in the house somewhere, but if Brittany doesn't help -

"Britt." Santana spins, taking Brittany by the shoulders. "Where is your gun?"

Brittany's wide eyes are such a sad shade of blue that Santana knows she'll cry if she looks at them too long. Brittany is so confused, so lost, and Santana has always been her guide, the one she looks to for answers. But Santana can't explain this, can't make it seem okay or promise that it'll get better.

"Britt! Answer me." Santana gives a desperate, small shake to Brittany's frame. "Where. Is. Your. Gun!"

"Under the kitchen sink," Brittany stammers, and Santana drags her back into the house and into the kitchen. Santana remembers eating dinner here with the Spears family on warm Saturday nights and there would be laughter and food and normal things, happy things, and it shatters Santana's heart into jagged pieces at the sight of the upturned table and missing chairs.

Shaking the thoughts away, Santana dives under the sink. The gun feels foreign in her hands, even though her dad - oh _God_ - had showed her how to fire one. Still holding onto Brittany, they move back toward the front door, but a dark figure is blocking the doorway. The Infected man had made his way up the porch. His eyes are hungry and coated in an off-white sheet. His mouth is bloody.

"Mr. Samerson?" Brittany whispers from behind Santana, trying to make her way around the other girl. "Mr. Samerson, it's me, Brittany. I'm your neighbor."

Santana shifts in front of Brittany. "Stay back. He's not your neighbor anymore, Britt. He's Infected."

"He's friends with my mom! He lets me play with his dog!" Brittany is crying. "Mr. Samerson, where is Yorkie? Where is your dog?"

The man takes an uneasy step forward. His hands are out, but he's silent, eyes sharp. Santana raises the gun, heart thundering. Brittany screams into the girl's ear, trying to get around her, tearing at the back of Santana's shirt like she could dig right through. The last step Mr. Samerson makes is his last one - Santana fires just once, eyes closed, the bullet lodging itself into the man's gut. Brittany screams, the sound ripping Santana's ears when she steps forward and takes better aim. This time, the shot lands square between Mr. Samerson's eyes and then he's in a heap on the ground.

Brittany doesn't talk on the ride back to Santana's house. When they arrive, Santana's dad is gone and the sounds of her mother's sobbing rings through the kitchen. Santana pushes Brittany toward the stairs, following close behind. It isn't until Brittany falls on the girl's bed and curls into the sheets that she says anything, and all she says is, "I should have given him medicine."

/

Two weeks after Santana's dad is buried in the backyard, they come.

The last surviving group of Lima, made up of a whopping thirty-four people, are moving in huge vans. Some of them are Glee kids. Rachel and Quinn are there. Puck, Finn, Shuester and Emma. When Santana asks about Tina and Artie and Lauren, no one says a word.

They're going to renovate the K-Mart, they say. They're going to live there. There's still plenty of food in Lima. They could last for years if they plan it out right.

Santana and Brittany pack small bags. Mostly food and durable clothes. Brittany is trembling when they start to walk down the stairs before she finally plops down. Santana stares at her before kneeling, touching Brittany's face, bringing their foreheads together.

"I'm not going to let anything happen to you." Santana kisses Brittany's forehead. Her nose. Her lips. She tastes like what crying feels like. Santana kisses her over and over again for emphasis until finally Brittany stands again and they're able to join the caravan outside.

Santana's mom stands in the doorway. Her eyes and face are empty. She holds nothing in her hands and says nothing to Santana when her daughter looks back at her but nothing needs to be said.

They leave her there.

/

Santana puts up a tent in one of the toy aisles of K-Mart. Brittany had asked so sheepishly to sleep there that it nearly broke Santana's heart, or it would have, if there was anything left to break.

Brittany returns with an armful of food. She looks relieved, giving Santana a juice box, and the two drink and eat candy without saying anything.

"There is a lot of medicine here," Brittany says, nodding to herself, rocking on her knees. Santana touches her leg.

"It's not that kind of sickness, Britt."

Brittany looks up. She doesn't understand and somehow that makes Santana feel better because all of this is seen by Brittany through a fog of confusion and that made it less real. Brittany isn't stupid but she is dense and for the first time in Santana's life she's grateful for that trait. Santana doesn't want to have to try and put this into terms Brittany will understand. She doesn't want to make this seem like child's play. It's not. It isn't. This is an Infected planet and the rules here are different.

But Brittany will be the same.

Santana takes Brittany's ankles and draws them around her waist. Brittany scoots in, head in Santana's neck, black hair mingling with blonde. With a hand rubbing the other girl's back, Santana closes her eyes and searches for Brittany's mouth. They kiss, and it's everything Santana can't say - that the world is going to hell and she can't fix it, but that she's not going anywhere, that nothing will happen to her, that Santana will be her angel.

Brittany tastes like the medicine that can't cure the world, but it can help Santana.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Title;** Friends_  
><em><strong>Pairing;<strong> Rachel & Quinn (friendship, romance if you squint)_  
><em><strong>Rating;<strong> T _

/

Rachel sits between her parents. With one father on each side, they watch for what feels like the millionth time the worst possible news.

"The Infection has found its way to the north east," a newswoman with short red hair blinks hard into the screen. The camera was shaking. "May God have mercy," she whispers in a softer, less professional tone, and then the camera swivels toward the ground, and after a few hushed whispers, the screen turns off.

One dad takes her left hand, the other her right. Rachel swallows and drags them closer, until the three are embracing each other with enough pressure to cut off all of their lungs.

"We'll be okay," one father says, pressing a kiss to the top of Rachel's head. "We will."

But Rachel know her dads well enough to realize when they're not certain.

/

"Your mom took my baby and fled west."

Rachel closes her locker door and sees Quinn standing on the other side. She's in jeans and a simple jacket. It's weird for Rachel to see her like that and almost frustrating - how could she give up so easily? Rachel is still putting her outfits together with the same vigor she did before all of this. Why is everyone else giving up? Why is she the only one keeping her head?

Despite the words, the tone was soft and she doesn't seem angry. Rachel readjusts her arms around her books and glances back and forth down the hall - there are few students. More than half the country are convinced the end of the world is only days away, so school has dropped to the bottom of priority lists. Not for Rachel Berry. When the world went back to normal, she'd be able to boast about how she had kept it together. That's the plan.

Rachel doesn't know what to say in response to Quinn, so she just stands there and studies the blonde's hazel eyes. She's surprised to see Quinn here at all. Most students were relieved at the chance to drop school altogether. Teachers weren't showing up anymore, either. Rachel's pretty certain that there aren't even classes going on anymore, and still she shows up. It makes her feel better, calmer, like the rest of the world is just a stage she's acting in and here, at McKinley, is where reality checks in.

"I didn't get to say goodbye to Beth." Quinn swallows.

Rachel says, "I'm sorry."

Quinn's eyelids flicker and Rachel can tell by the way her throat tenses up that she's resisting the urge to cry. "It's safer out there."

Rachel nods. She takes a deep breath. "Are you okay?"

"Are you?"

She nods her way through a lie. "I'm fine."

But the United States had lost all contact with Europe just the day before. The suicide rate had spiked to thousands every day. The northeast is quarantined and the Infection is slowly creeping its way through the midwest. Ohio isn't safe. As the two speak, safe in their high school hallway, the first Infected person stumbles across the state line, and a group is following him.

Quinn offers her arms and Rachel can't do much of anything except fall into them. No one is there, and even if there had been, the two girls doubt any of them would have said anything.

When the end of the world is coming, people strictly rethink their priorities.

Quinn's fingers tangle in the back of Rachel's head. She's never needed Rachel, really, and the two have been bittersweet towards one another for most of high school, but it all seems so stupid in retrospect.

"Guess this means we can be friends now."

Quinn tightens her arms around the brunette with a puff of humorless laughter. "Yeah. Friends."

/

After McKinley is closed for good, Rachel's dads refuse to let her leave the house, and like a caged bird, she stops singing.

/

The Infected seem like bumbling idiots, but they know how to bust down doors.

The screaming wakes her. Rachel blearily climbs the stairs from the basement, yelling for her dads, grabbing the baseball leaning against the kitchen counter. She jogs to the kitchen and there it - she? - is. On TV they seemed less real, less human, but up close they have a mouth and a nose and eyes, white-filmed eyes that don't blink as it (she, it's a woman, with blonde hair in a bun and a dress on) sinks its teeth further into Rachel's dad's neck. Blood swims down the back of his shirt.

Rachel screams. She screams and screams and focuses on the burning of her throat as the bat in her hand becomes a weapon. She beats the creature off of her father until it stumbles, and then she keeps slamming the bat on the things head. Each blow knocks off another noun - girl woman person daughter sister friend - until it's just a monster that's dead on her carpet.

"Dad! Dad!"

Rachel drops the bat. Her hands are sore, and she puts them on her fallen father's chest and releases a terrible, painful sound. His fingers streaked with red touch the side of her head, try to say something, but his pale lips fall open with nothing but a last breath.

She doesn't know how long she stays there bent over her father's body. He'll move again, she knows, and he'll try to attack her, he'll try to eat her just like the creature to her left had, with its skull caved in. There's blood all over her pajama pants and the smell is so thick it makes her stomach curl, but she can't move.

Until she remembers her other father.

"Dad?" Rachel croaks into the darkness of her house. There is no reply, no footsteps, and she doesn't have to see her other father's body to know that he's either dead or wandering the streets, already Infected.

Either way, she's alone.

Rachel has always had this drive, this motivation, and it hasn't failed her yet. She drags herself to the basement, packs a bag, pulls her hair back, and washes the blood from her face and hands in the sink. She tries to the TV in the kitchen, but every station is static.

That's it. This is it.

Dragging the backs of her hands under her eyes, she falls through the back door, not willing to pass by the bloody mess in her living room to use the front. Both of her dad's cars are parked in front of the house. She has the keys clasped in one hand. Choosing the larger of the two, she climbs inside, an empty hole carving its way deep into her chest when she looks back at her house. Her home. She thinks she sees a flutter of movement in the window but can't bring herself to wait and see because if it's one of her dads, she doesn't know what she'll do.

The radio is static. The cellphone towers are down. The Infection has spread to America.

May God have mercy, she thinks, and for the first time in her life, she speeds.

/

She goes to Mr. Shuester's apartment first because he's the only adult left that she can trust.

He hugs her when she knocks on the door. Emma is holding a gun and it looks so wrong that it makes Rachel want to puke.

They tell her they're going to go the K-Mart on the other side of town. There's already a group of people there renovating it, to keep it Infection-free, they say. Rachel wrings her hands together. "We have to find the others."

Mr. Schuester touches her back. "It's not safe, we have to go straight there -"

"We have to find the others! Our friends!"

They argue about morals while Rachel stands defiantly by the door.

"I'll go by myself. I swear I will."

Emma stays. Mr. Shuester gets in his car and Rachel tries to stop crying as they tear off into the Lima streets.

/

There are a handful of survivors driving around. Mr. Shuester convinces them to join them at the K-Mart. There's a train of people following them, stopping at houses that don't look too dangerous and searching for friends, family, anyone that isn't Infected. There are dozens of them walking around, but some of the more brave survivors take them out with bullets. Rachel sinks into her seat.

Finn and Kurt are alive. So are their parents, and Rachel is so relieved to see them she almost collapses on their front lawn. Finn holds her up while Kurt mumbles into her ear. Blaine emerges from the house with who she assumes is his father, but his face is blotchy and red from crying and Rachel can see the same loss in him that she feels in her.

Mercedes is found next, and then Puck, but Tina's house is empty. No Lauren. They find Mike with his parents but they refuse to stay in Lima. Finn starts crying. Rachel squeezes Mike for nearly ten minutes before his parents pry her off. She screams at him but nothing is intelligible.

When they arrive at Artie's house, Puck flies into it, only to come barreling back out as two Infected people - oh God Artie's _parents_ - stumble after them. Puck screams not to fire. Two gunshots ring through the air and they drop. Puck holds onto his head as he bursts back into the house.

The rest don't dare enter. They stand there, Rachel quivering, Mercedes holding onto Kurt and making small noises of distress.

"Rach?"

Rachel doesn't move. She doesn't look. She doesn't know who said her name. She says, "My dads are dead."

Puck carries Artie out. The group heaves a sigh as a whole to see him not bitten, not injured, but he's hysterical, face buried in Puck's neck as the taller boy steps around the dead bodies of Artie's parents.

Rachel holds Artie's hands because she knows, she knows.

Quinn's house is big and wide and Finn is the one who walks up to it first, followed by Will. Rachel can't seem to think of him as a teacher anymore.

No one answers. Rachel feels like she's being strangled. Finn steps into the house and calls out and Rachel's eyes are searching the windows from the outside. Even from a distance she can see the green hue of Quinn's eyes behind the curtains and Rachel screams, throwing up her arms. "There! She's there!"

She had locked herself in her room. She was shaking and dried blood coated her arms as Finn and Will carry her outside. Rachel runs to her, their bodies colliding. Quinn keeps repeating "I killed my dad, I killed my daddy -" and Rachel tells her no, no, no. She holds Quinn in her lap in the backseat of Will's car and rocks her like a child, like a broken thing, and God, she's never seen a person so shattered and she looks out the window and realizes that nothing is put together anymore.

Brittany is at Santana's house. The two look empty, scooped out, and Brittany keeps mumbling about medicine as she climbs in and sits beside Santana. The Latina girl strokes the blonde, kisses her cheeks, stays calm - even as Santana's mother stares at them from the doorway of her house and she doesn't come with.

"Berry." Santana finds her eyes. They're darker than usual. "Jesus, breathe."

But she doesn't, not really, because she's listening to Quinn take shaky breaths and she doesn't want to drown them out.

/

The K-Mart is sectioned off. There's a place for the injured - not bitten - and there's a place for food and water and there's a place for grieving and - Rachel and Quinn settle there. Actually, everyone settles there, and there is wailing and screaming and words, lots of words, this isn't fair, why, why, no, please, God, where are you God, why, please, please.

"Somebody kill me! Somebody kill me!"

Puck holds Artie's screaming face close to his. "You're going to live, Artie, god damnit, _shut up_!"

And Rachel can't believe that music ever existed in a place like this.

/

"Hey."

Quinn's forehead meets Rachel's shoulder. It's been a week. She thinks. She doesn't really know because days don't matter in this place. Rachel's hand entwines with Quinn's.

"We're going to survive this." Rachel Berry refuses to lose her drive. "You and me, Quinn. All of us. We'll be fine if we just stay sane."

"Rachel, none of us are sane anymore."

"Okay. Well. We'll survive anyway. I refuse to let you die."

Quinn smiles thinly against Rachel's shoulder. "Just me?"

"Everyone. But, you know."

"Because I'm your friend."

Rachel nods. She turns her head so her lips rest against Quinn's hair. "You and me."

And the world has gone to shit and neither of them can think of a reason not to hold hands and cry against each other, so Quinn just says, "Okay."


	3. Chapter 3

_**Title;** Shoot_  
><em><strong>Pairing;<strong> Kurt & Blaine_  
><em><strong>Rating;<strong> T _

_/_

"And we thought our biggest troubles would be being gay."

It's Kurt's desperate attempt at humor. Blaine's hand wraps around his knee, giving him an appreciative smile. Neither laugh, but it's something.

/

"Kurt, okay, just - no, okay, yeah, like that. Okay, now, be careful, because when it goes off it's gonna - _shit_!"

Kurt nearly falls over as the loud boom shatters the sky with noise. His back lands into Finn's chest, whose hands steady him with a tight grip. Kurt is shaking, the breath knocked out of him by the gun. His fingers retract, the weapon falling to the ground with a clatter.

He whips around and glares hard at his step-brother, lifting a hand to point menacingly at him. "I am _never_ doing that again."

"It was your first time, you've still got to - Kurt, come on!"

Kurt slams back into the storage area of the K-Mart. Several heads turn to watch him stalk to the main area of the store, which was now run like a small city. Releasing a tight breath, Kurt falls against a shelf, rubbing his forehead. The shockwaves of the gun were still ringing in his arm. Violence of any sort made him sick, even if this was self defense. He knew he needed these skills, that everyone except the very young were learning the same techniques with the guns. Hell, Rachel Berry was out there shooting targets like the rest of them.

He just couldn't. He just didn't have that in him.

"Kurt?"

A gentle voice. A smooth, calm tone that immediately made him melt at the knees. He turns, already half-smiling to see Blaine stepping up beside him.

"I can't," Kurt says, his voice tight, like it always seems to be as of late, like he's always on the verge of crying. It's hard not to be when every time he looks out the K-Mart windows, all he sees is the skeleton of a city that used to exist. "I can't shoot. I can't, Blaine. I can't even step on a bug without feeling like I'm going to have horrendous karma, there's no way I can shoot something that used to human -"

"Hey." The shorter boy pulls Kurt into his chest, a hand smoothing down Kurt's spine. "No one is going to make you do it, okay?"

"Finn was upset."

"Finn's a macho kind of guy. The idea of shooting real things and not video game things is probably really cool to him." Blaine leans back. "There are plenty of guys here more than willing to kill those ..." He swallows. "Things."

Kurt nods. "I think it's official. We're calling them zombies."

Blaine shakes his head slowly, plucking at his lower lip with his teeth. "It's like a horror movie."

"I know."

Except it's a thousand times worse.

Their hands find each other and they stay there for a time, watching the K-Mart turned refuge bustle on, a handful of lives trying to operate when thrown off course.

/

Kurt has chewed off all of his nails.

Blaine tenderly pushes the older boy's hand out of the reach of his teeth before settling at his side, passing a bowl of soup into his lap. It makes Kurt's stomach scream, forgetting his spoon and bringing the bowl straight to his lips. Taking a long gulp, Kurt lowers it back to his knees, giving a slight shake of his head. "The world ends and my manners just go right out the window."

Blaine smiles tightly. "No one blames you."

Kurt puts the bowl to his side and turns to Blaine, their hands joining like magnets. Blaine looks thinner and tired, purple bags punched beneath his eyes, and Kurt knows he looks just as bad, but it still hurts him to see his Warbler look so defeated.

"How are you and your dad ... dealing?"

Blaine's throat tenses. They hadn't talked about the death of Blaine's mother yet. The younger boy looks away, dark eyes far off, remembering. "I don't know. We're just ... existing, you know."

"Blaine." Kurt leans on his knees, two thumbs swiping the runaway tears from Blaine's eyes. "I'm so sorry."

Running a hand through his dark, messy hair, Blaine twists back to his boyfriend. "She would have wanted me to survive for as long as possible. I miss her - so much, so much it, it's -" A hand hovers over his heart. Kurt's hand wraps around it. Blaine swallows. "But she ... she wouldn't want me to grieve forever, you know? I have to survive this. I have to be as happy as I can be without her, living in this place. For her. For my dad." Blaine lifts Kurt's hand to his lips, kissing the slender knuckles with care. "For you."

/

It takes several weeks, but Kurt finds himself outside again with the other boys and the more fierce girls willing to learn to shoot. Quinn gives him a reassuring smile as Kurt poses before one of the targets. He knows what to expect this time but it doesn't make it any less frightening. The gun feels like murder in his hands.

They're not human, he tells himself, giving himself a slight nod. They're not human anymore.

A heavy hand clapping on his shoulder nearly makes him shoot, only to whip around and see his father smiling down at him. Burt Hummel takes Kurt's arms, steadying them, making sure their in line with the human-shaped cutout down the way.

"Dad, this thing scares the crap out of me."

"As much as the Infected?"

Kurt swallows. "No."

"You've gotta learn this, bud. If the time comes and you're alone, you have to be able to take these things down."

"They were people, Dad."

"Were. They _were_."

Kurt takes a deep breath. Burt leaves him there, the sound of bullets being rounded off on both sides of him. He hears Mercedes cheering somewhere to his left, a high-five, Finn praising Puck somewhere else.

"You can do this." Blaine's voice, right behind him. Kurt doesn't turn to look. "Courage, remember?"

Kurt blinks and there are tears in his eyes. Sniffling, he nods, closes one eye, and takes aim, right at the cutout's head.

He fires.

Again, he nearly falls, but Blaine is there to steady his feet. There's a moment of silence, of heads turning to look, and there it is - a hole, right in the middle of the head.

There is applause. Kurt gives a nervous laugh and pushes the gun into Blaine's hands, arms shaking.

"Good job." Blaine kisses Kurt's temple.

"I knew there was some testosterone in you." Finn gives him a thumbs up. Kurt makes a face before moving back into the K-Mart, crossing his arms to keep them still. The building is quiet - children he still doesn't know the names of playing in the toy aisle, parents sorting food, an elderly couple reading books on beanbags.

"This is so surreal," Kurt mumbles, and then Blaine swims into his vision, blissfully blocking everything else out.

And then they're kissing, not giving a damn because there's really nothing left to lose.

/

"I'm glad my mother isn't alive now."

"Why?"

Kurt throws his thumb toward the window. "Because this is not the Lima she was in love with. I'm glad she didn't have to see it."


End file.
